Protecting Our Gold Star Families Education Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding.

As a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and as someone who represents San Antonio, an inordinate number of veterans, Joint Base San Antonio, Army Futures Command, I regret to rise in opposition to the legislation before us.

I respect the enormous amount of work that has gone into this legislation by the committee staff, by the ranking member, by the chairman, by the Senate. Obviously, it is an important issue, and it is critical. I have many friends here, particularly veterans, who support this measure, and I understand why.

Every single one of us wants to make sure that we take care of this issue, and frankly, it has been way too long in getting to it. I agree with that completely. But, unfortunately, I cannot support this bill because this bill spends about $285 billion that we don't have.

We have to address the issue in this body of spending money we don't have. The chairman said: Well, why don't you raise it on other issues? I raised it on every single issue. I raised it on a $2 million bill about 30 minutes ago on the floor.

At some point, we have to pay for the stuff that we are spending it on or the very things that these veterans sacrificed for will be made completely and utterly worthless. We are destroying the Republic that these men and women sacrificed for, and we are destroying it in this Chamber by our incompetence and by our irresponsible refusal to actually manage the affairs of the Republic appropriately.

Putting this bill on autopilot to the tune of $680 billion of mandatory spending with $280 billion unpaid for, which we can pay for right now with existing COVID funds, we could pay for it right now with the elimination of the SALT deduction, we could pay for it right now with any number of spending cuts and/or tax increases--if we wanted to have that debate on the floor of the House--but we are not doing it.

We do a disservice to the veterans who are sick because of the burn pits. We do a disservice to the veterans who laid their lives on the line and died for this country. We do a disservice to the military that we say that we support when we are not spending money that we actually have, as opposed to printing money and borrowing money.

Putting it on autopilot, when 60 percent of our spending every year is already on autopilot--when we are $30.5 trillion in debt. Instead of the established scientific framework, we put 20 conditions in without scientific evidence which will cause a backlog, which the VA even acknowledges will cause a backlog. These are real concerns that we ought to address.

Fundamentally, you have to pay for that which we are spending. We are undermining the sacrifice of the very veterans that we say that we are helping with this measure by not doing it with fiscal responsibility.

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